For the Chinese culture their New Year revelry originated with end-of-harvest celebrations when people would offer thanks to gods for good harvests and entreaty for a good crop in the following year. Traditionally, this holiday encouraged families to thoroughly clean their homes to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck.

Each New Year is named after one of the twelve zodiac animals for example on January 31, 2014, the Year of the Horse will begin. As women entrepreneurs planning for the start of a new business year, we have an opportunity to name our year; I challenge you to name it the Year of Risk.

For the past four years we have been living in a frightened economic climate – one which produced worry and trepidation in the hearts of business owners. Most women entrepreneurs I know have survived this period but not with alot of gain. While staying in a conservative, holding pattern can keep a company afloat; it can’t stay that way forever. Being static eventually produces feelings of failure. Being too conservative in business for too long is like having the flu, if you lay in bed too long waiting out the pain, you lose the strength you need to get back on your feet. The longer you stay down, the harder it is to get up.

I believe it is time for women entrepreneurs to claim 2014 as their year of risk – the kind of risk that makes you get out of bed with a little bit of nervous energy to move forward in a direction you’ve really wanted to go in. We each know what risk we have been avoiding – it could be small, it could be large – but it’s there standing in the way of feeling like we are moving, growing, expanding, breathing. Going backward has never felt fun, not even on a roller coaster. Forward movement is the only way to be exhilarated and progressive.

Today’s post is to encourage you to risk in 2014 – risk small and risk big. Hire the person you’ve always wanted to hire. Take the extra educational courses you’ve needed to move your company forward. Invest some resources in improving your company. Add new product or service lines. Have more honest communication with your clients. Travel and meet new prospects. Add new technology. Attend bigger conferences. Expand your business network. Let Women TIES help you.

You can’t be in a holding pattern forever and either can your business. Maybe we need to do what the Chinese do and thoroughly clean our “house” sweeping away ill-fortune and worries in order to make the way for good incoming luck, riches and opportunities. Make this year the Year of Risk and challenge yourself every day to get up on your feet with new entrepreneurial energy and zest to grow your business. Do it without worry, fear or trepidation